Enhanced weathering in the spotlights

It has been quite a while since I updated the blog. So, let’s pick up where we left last year… With media attention for geo-engineering, and enhanced weathering in particular.

In a recent editorial, the scientific journal Nature Geoscience turned the spotlight directly to enhanced weathering and its potential to contribute to negative emissions, the net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. Click here for the direct link. In the last post, I found out that the popular science website IFLScience picked up on an interview in the New Scientist, when I was visiting a conference on Ocean Acidification in Tasmania. Again, I cannot say it often enough how nice and important it is to be covered by more popular science media. In this way, a far larger -and in essence, more important- audience is made aware of what is achieved in the realm of Academia.

As such, I wanted to put down a list of media that have covered our story in the past years. Just to show that the use of enhanced weathering of olivine against ocean acidification, both from a scientific and climate change mitigation standpoints, is considered an interesting option. Also, I wanted to provide useful links, with extra narratives, that makes those articles so much easier digestible than your average scientific article.

Being a scientist I have to stress here -and stress it I will- that I do not endorse or dismiss any climate engineering action per sé. What I DO promote, wholeheartedly, is research into these approaches. How else are governing bodies going to decide whether to pursue a certain path of climate change mitigation approaches, if they do not have the scientifically checked facts on the table ? I know that the last sentence might even sound a bit odd in the “post-truth” era we appear to be living in, but I stand by my point.

OLIvOA now operates from the Institute of Oceanography - University of São Paulo

About us

OLIvOA is a research initiative investigating the use of enhanced weathering of the silicate mineral olivine against Ocean Acidification. Olivine weathering causes the seawater to become less acidic and increases its capacity to take up (more) carbon dioxide (CO2).

OLIvOA 'headquarters' is currently located in Brazil, but collaborates with researchers from all over the world. The epicenter of OLIvOA research is (still) in Europe.